


Wait, Just Wait

by panther



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millicent turns up at 12 Grimmauld place and the trio have to listen. She knows things that others don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wait, Just Wait

Millicent Bulstrode is not someone Hermione ever expected to join the resistance against Lord Voldemort. They could hardly call it the Order anymore given most of them are dead and those left are wary of having Harry as their leader. Most will respond when called upon but something has changed. The Order would never have taken Millicent. They are far too suspicious these days and after Snape ragtag Slytherins are not welcome. Hermione finds that very narrow minded so gathers Harry and Fleur to hear Millicent out. Ron is too busy with Bill trying to destroy the locket and no one else is at Number 12 when Hermione notices Millicent bleeding in the middle of the street. At first Hermione thinks to leave her there but one, she just does not have such action in her and two she does not believe in coincidences and yet Millicent is all but on their doorstep.

"Start talking." Harry demands quietly. "We have given you more than enough with our location. If you don't give us good enough reasons then you don't leave. Ever."

Hermione shivers but the last person to find them through high jacketing an Apparition was dragged into the house and quickly killed by an ashen faced Fleur. it was the moment Hermione truly understand why the Tri Wizard cup chose her. 

"They don't want me anymore. I don't think they ever did. I am not a pureblood. I am a half-blood and they found out. I stayed at Hogwarts to get an education. When I was still sent my letter I thought I would be safe despite...despite my mother. I was wrong. My life was hellish and they used any excuse to put me into detention where I was tortured. I realised then how little blood meant. In class I did better than purebloods. My mother is still a witch and she is still strong. I am not weaker because I came from her womb. I left Hogwarts voluntarily and I have spent his Christmas trying to find the resistance. I knew there had to be one. There had to be when Potter, I mean you, were still alive."

 

"You found us when others could not. How?"

"The radio broadcasts. I followed them. I figured it out!"

"Lies!"

" _Harry!_ , we don't know that. We can never be sure how secure anything is."

Harry paces the room and glances at Fleur. Fleur looks at Hermione and Harry nods. 

"You could have gone anywhere and been safe. Why here?"

Millicent holds her head high and glares at Harry as if she is not tied to a chair, "I betrayed everyone I knew because I realised they were wrong. If I want to do something about it where else would I go?"

"Anywhere. I don't trust you. Fleur, find her a room. We will talk later."

Harry storms from the room and Millicent looks confused and scared as Fleur moves towards her. She meets Hermione's eyes and Hermione ducks the gaze, ignores the panic, and says a soft 'goodbye' before leaving. 

*

It takes months before Harry trusts Millicent to accompany Hermione on a reconnaissance tour of the Ministry . Hermione is under a glamour but Millicent is not known to anyone important so goes as herself. It allows her to behave more naturally than Hermione can though she is still on edge the whole time. Hermione has something to retrieve and Millicent is not trusted enough to know that but she has her own mission, observation. Their fellow classmates have graduated now and some are now employed at the ministry. Where they are employed tells the resistance a lot about where their loyalties lie. Not everyone who returned to Hogwarts is on Lord Voldemort's side after all and it implies where the resistance can get spies. Not going back could have proved more dangerous than running for some so to find Daphne Greengrass pushing paperwork only a level or two above the basement says a lot. Pansy Parkinson, of course, already has a job as assistant to Percy Weasley and that is a pair Millicent never thought to see having a polite conversation. Weasley's rejection of his family has lifted him in the status circles though.

Status means a whole lot more than anything else these days such as right and wrong or whether someone is a decent human being to be around. Parkinson is neither good nor decent. In fact Millicent is pretty certain she is the most annoying person she has had the dissatisfaction of sharing oxygen with. No one notices her and frankly that takes Milicent aback. Potter was right. They only look for those they see as a threat. Half-bloods will be next but for the time being it is muggleborns that plaster the wanted posters alongside blood traitors like Ron Weasley and fugitives like Harry Potter. Fleur Weasley is to be arrested on site and deported but no one in the resistance is stupid enough to believe she would make it to the border. 

A Muggle cafe around the corner from the Ministry is the meet up point. Millicent arrives there first and orders a coffee, handing over unfamiliar coins with shaking hands. When with her Muggle grandparents she had never handled the money. For an hour she sits and frets and starts to think that Hermione will not appear and they have her. Going back to report that to Potter is all but suicide but there is nowhere else to go. The least she can do is hand over her information first. An old man leaves a copy of _The Metro_ , the free newspaper distributed on the trains and buses in the Muggle world and Millicent reads it for something to do. None of it makes sense. She knows the name of the Prime Minister and has a vague notion of where the motorway they are talking about is but that is that. Muggles seem awfully caught up in celebrities that do not show a lot of skill. Skin perhaps, but not skill. Why a band would call themselves the _Spice Girls_ is certainly beyond Millicent. 

Chest heaving, Hermione bursts into the cafe an hour and a half late. Her cheeks are red and she all but throws herself into a seat opposite Millicent. She does not stop shaking. 

"Coffee." She splutters eventually. "The one called a latte." 

Millicent gets to her feet and goes to the counter on autopilot. She has never seen Hermione Granger so rattled and she watched her see Harry Potter come out of that maze. Realising she has enough money Millicent orders herself another drink and gets a biscuit for Hermione too. Sugar seems like a good idea for the other woman and maybe there will be comfort in it too. Wordlessly she takes it over and waits for Hermione to talk first. 

"We can finish this and then make our way back and ....and...things are going to change. Yes. Change."

Then Hermione falls silent and says nothing for another half hour when she silently rises from her seat and leads Millicent from the cafe. They walk arm in arm, as planned, to the nearest underground entrance where they walk past dozens of muggles going sightseeing and then disappear into a nook that they can Apparate from unseen. 

On their return to Headquarters Hermione mutters her goodbyes and disappears into her room to change her clothes. Millicent gives her report to Bill Weasley and then slinks into the kitchen hoping Hermione will prove a creature of habit and come looking for tea after her report. 

She does not need to wait long.

*

"Oh, of course you are here. I expect I seemed quite the state."

"Not a state. Troubled. I saw a few alarming things myself. Some I expected and some I did not but still....troubling. Tea?"

"Please." Millicent sets about boiling the kettle and pulls tealeaves from the cupboard and her old trusty teapot she brought with her when she arrived. It is garishly patterned but always gives a good brew and trusting the resistance with it in the kitchen was probably when she handed herself over fully. Tea means a lot to Millicent, and the pot comes from the home that no longer exists. Merlin only knows where her mother and father are. Making tea takes time she can have to herself and it is always calming. If she finds herself lost in her thoughts she pulls out an old worn book on the history and thanks Merlin it is something the Wizarding world was willing to take from the Muggle. 

"I heard a lot of people leaving?"

"Yes...given what I found out....more intelligence is needed. I found that Lord Voldemort is trying to connect with foreign Ministries again but this time it comes with threats. We could be looking at an international war."

"I am not surprised." Millicent says as she places a mug of tea in front of Hermione. 

"No, I guess it is not surprise really. If he thinks the way that he does there is no reason to stop now, here, with us." Hermione sounds deflated and Millicent cannot help but reach over the table and cover Hermione's hand with her own.

"We will find a way to stop him."

Hermione smiles, "Well we are working on it."

That is when Millicent truly believes Potter has a real plan. Hermione sounds flat and defeated and as if she would like to shut the door on the world but somewhere in her eyes there is the truth. Potter has a plan. 

"I'm going to go to bed now. Goodbye."

"Bye, Milli. Sleep tight."

Something in Millicent's spine tingles but she ignores it. They are at war after all. 

*

Everything escalates after Hermione's intelligence. The French send word that they will send hit wizards and the Spanish and Germans are quick to follow. They want nothing to do with Lord Voldemort's madness and they certainly do not want it in their lands. The resistance are suddenly equipped with money, technology and information. More importantly they have man power. Potter seems to be stressed for a while and then he, Weasley and Hermione are on missions no one can know about. 

Millicent worries about Hermione without really knowing why. Maybe it is because she is the only friend Mille has and maybe it has been something brewing for years but people are dying and asking questions does not belong here. No one else will have tea with her. No one else will eat with her. No one else seems to smile when Mille comes back alive. No one else appreciates when Mille makes the Potion for Lupin and does the blood tests on the Lupin baby. Hermione does. 

Or it seems she does. 

When Weasley, Potter and Hermione come back for the last time Fleur, Millicent and Dean Thomas have to fight off the Death Eaters that tail them. They watch from the windows, panting, as Lord Voldemort himself appears in the street and cackles. There is nothing much you can say to that. Millicent makes tea with shaking hands and Bill calls for enforcements. Millicent wonders when he and Fleur abandoned his cottage and more importantly, why she never noticed. Potions were her speciality. Books were provided, Millicent learned and provided and now she wonders when she took time to live. Not much outside of cups of tea. 

Hermione appears weeks later in a flurry of leaves and sticks and panting. She declares the final battle is now and asks Millicent to send the resistance to Hogwarts. That is the moment Milli realises that she is the only one truly living at Number 12 and that when she thinks about it she is the one with contacts and more than that she is _trusted_. She sends notifications to everyone she can and hopes they will pass them on further. Then she goes and puts on her favourite blue cloak, black shirt and her Slytherin tie. She does not want Slytherin to go down in history as the bad guys. She knows she is not the only one to leave and hopes she will not be the only one to return when called. Her most important place in the resistance was getting in touch with those who fled her house. 

When Harry Potter tells Snape he has a security problem Millicent marches forward proudly. It is a year after her friends graduated, if what is what they were, and that helps. She raises her wand and she goes to war and she thinks of her mother. When she does, Hermione Granger meets her eyes and nods. 

*

Millicent wakes up in the infirmary at Hogwarts with an unknown wizard standing over her. She kicks and screams and calls out the incantations she cannot make happen without a wand. A blue light hits her and it is another six hours before she comes to again. The time she is face to face with Hermione Granger and it is different. 

Hermione has her hand. 

"I never said anything."

"I think you had enough going on. I heard." Millicent mumbles, and it is true. Hermione had a world to defend, a species if anyone would call it that but she still found time to talk to Millicent. 

This time when Hermione walks away she says 'I will be back soon, with tea' and that is when Millicent realises the war is really won for her. She has peace.


End file.
